Does anyone know how I can setup my Agfa SnapScan 1212p Parallel Scanner with my FC5 distro? I have setup a printer before and it seemed quite easy, but I can't see anything in the menus for Scanner connectivity??

Is it an easy thing to do? I had a hard enough time getting it setup on WinXP (as Agfa stopped support and Driver development for Win2000 onwards). I had to download a Registry entry and a different version of Agfa's scanning software.

OK. Both hyperlinks worked for me. Anyway, it seems Agfa closed their scanner business in 2001 and are not interested.
However, I may have a solution for you:

Try Vuescan. It's not free but works in Windows, Mac and Linux. You can try it before buying.
It claims to support your scanner Agfa1212p. I see there are 2 versions (with and withpout power switch) but they don't make any reference to that.

Save it in your /home/username folder.
Right click on the vuesca84.tgz
Choose "extract to vuesca84".

This creates a new folder with that name.
In that folder, just double click on vuescsan and it should open. If your scanner is connected and powered it should find it.

If you want a desktop shortcut, just drag the file to your desktop and select "link to file".

Good luck, it's worth a try. I have used in Mac OSX and just today installed it in Fedora 6 and it works great. it's about $40 but I was able to use my Mac registration and serial number so I didn't have to pay again.

cheers for that info whitecloud, its was REALLY helpful! i've email the support email at hamrick to ask him if he knows if it works before i start messing about with it. but if it does, i owe you whitecloud!! :-)
Picco

mmmmm.... i've not had a reply back from the support desk yet. Does anyone have an alternate contact email for this company? From reading the support page it seems as though it's just one guy. But i'm unsure???

Does anyone have any experience of using this software in an Unix environment?

It's very easy to install and the folder containing the programme does not interfere with anything else on your PC. If you're not happy, just delete the folder. There's no compiling or RPM needed. You just unzip the folder and that's it.

If you just do what I did you'll know straight away whether it works or not. You've nothing to lose.
The guy who sells it claims to answer 50 emails per day so be patient. It's the weekend.

One thing that did annoy me was when i copied the .tgz into my home dir and extracted it. it gave me the files in a folder - great. then why i double-clicked the executable NOTHING happened? Why is that?

Sorry to hear that. Sure enough, he said "Vuescan doesn't support any parallel scanners" (only usb and scsi). I had forgotten to read that info. Perhaps the inclusion in the list was an error and he really meant it to be the 1212u (the usb version). I don't see any other scanner listed ending with P.

Very busy this week but if I find any other way, I'll report back.

Meanwhile, did you say it works for you in Windows? If so, use that option for now or buy a cheap usb scanner that is listed.

Otherwise do a search for 1212P scanner. I did come across some sites claiming to have a linux driver but it not being so reliable.

JB

PS. If the file you were clicking on didn't open (it should), perhaps it's the other file called vuescan which you should double-click. If you can't open it, delete the folder and its contents and try again.